“I know he’s a cop, so he’s one of the good guys.” I smiled weakly. “Cops are always the good guys, right?”
“Only if vampires are always the bad guys.”
She had me there.
“Like I said, I’ve been around awhile and there’s something about this Parker Hayes that’s off.” She wrinkled her nose. “Something that doesn’t sit right. I just can’t quite put my finger on it yet.”
“Look, while my luck with men hasn’t exactly been”—I licked my lips—“stellar …”
“Like the Mentos commercial guy.”
I glared at Nina, who ignored me, pulling her long black hair into a ponytail. “Sorry. Go on.”
“I don’t think I’d overlook the signs of homicidal mania in a potential boyfriend.”
“Now he’s a potential boyfriend?”
“Potential platonic work friend,” I corrected.
Nina shrugged her small shoulders, looking away.
“Oh, and I’m supposed to take dating advice from the woman who dated Lenin and Stalin?”
Nina’s eyes were wistful. “Oh yeah, my Russian phase.” She shuddered. “Such drama queens, though. But my feeling about Parker isn’t exactly based on … feeling.”
My heart beat a little faster. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I looked Parker up, Soph. He’s not a detective with the San Francisco Police Department. He was an officer with the Buffalo Police Department in New York.”
“I know. I told you that. He transferred over here. I even saw the fancy cardboard boxes in his office.”
Nina licked her lips. “Sophie, Detective Parker Hayes was killed in the line of duty three and a half years ago.”
I couldn’t help but go all Haley Joel Osment on her. “You mean, I see dead people?”
“No.” Nina brushed a glossy lock of hair from her forehead, uncovering a sharp widow’s peak. “Your Parker Hayes—or this one—isn’t dead. He’s very much alive.”
I flashed back to the day Parker and I first met, to our meal at the diner. I thought about how he took my hand, slid my palm into his shirt so I could feel the warm beat of his heart—very much alive.
“Yeah.” My voice came out as little more than a whisper.
“And he’s telling us that he’s a detective. He’s lying to you, Sophie. He’s been lying all along. Detective Parker Hayes isn’t who he says he is.”
“No.” I wagged my head. “That’s wrong. I saw him at the police department. I saw his name on the door. I even saw the police chief in there talking to him. Don’t you think they would know if Parker isn’t … Parker? Or if he isn’t even a detective?”
Nina shrugged. “I don’t know. But I do know that we need to find out who he is and why he’s here.”
I nodded, fear pulsing through my body, a cold sweat breaking out on my upper lip. I sucked in a shaky breath. “Parker is looking for Sampson.”
Nina looked at me, her dark eyes cold. “We need to find him before Parker does.”
She didn’t say it—didn’t need to—because we were both thinking the same thing: Could Parker Hayes really be the collector?
Nina put her hand on mine, and her cold touch ran all the way up my arm. I looked at her, at her pale, milky skin, at the tiny white triangles pressing at the corners of her lips. Nina and I both stared out the bedroom window, watching the city lights press through the thick San Francisco fog.
“Okay, then. Where do we start?”
Chapter Nineteen
Nina fished around in her Birken bag and pulled out a file folder, pressing it close to her chest. “Are you sure you want to see this?”
I nodded, and a warm heat roiled through my body. “I’m sure. I want to see it.”
I took the folder with shaking hands, opening it slowly. Looking up at me was a four-by-six-inch head shot of a smiling man with spiky blond hair and a tight smile. His narrow shoulders barely seemed to fill out his navy blue police uniform, and printed in clear, careful scrawl across the bottom of the photograph were the words Officer Parker Hayes, Buffalo, NY.
“That’s Parker Hayes,” I whispered.
Nina nodded, her eyes warm.
“But it’s not Parker Hayes.”
There was no doubt about it. This man was not the man I knew. I gingerly put aside the photo and scanned the dossier about Officer Hayes—eye color: blue; hair color: blond. I noted his birth date, hometown, and then, with unsteady breath—the date he died.
“I don’t get it. Why is Parker pretending to be a dead guy?”
Nina took the file from me and thumbed through it. “It says that this Parker died while investigating …” Her voice trailed off, and when I looked up, she was gnawing on her lower lip.
“Died investigating what?” I asked.
Nina closed the folder. “Parker Hayes died while investigating a string of strange murders in Buffalo. Two victims. One completely drained of blood.”
I gulped, my saliva tasting metallic. “The other missing his eyeballs?”
“Remember the other night at Dirt, when we were trying to figure out what all these victims had in common?”